Petrarch might well be uneasy. Though never a good patriot as Boccaccio always was, he could not but be moved at the misfortunes of Florence, which had only escaped the attentions of Pandolfo Malatesta by placing herself almost at the mercy of Hawkwood and his White Company of Englishmen, fighting in the Pisan service. That winter, to the astonishment of all, a campaign was fought, for the English laughed at the Italian winter, colder maybe, but so much drier than their own, and by the spring Visconti had made peace with the Pope and with the Marquis of Montferrat, so that they were able to send Baumgarten's German company, 3000 strong, to the assistance of the Pisans, who had now not less than 6000 mercenaries in their service. Those were very anxious times in Florence, the whole _contado_ being at the mercy of Hawkwood, and when, by the intervention of the Pope, peace was signed in the autumn of 1364, she must have been thankful, more especially as Pisa engaged to pay her 100,000 florins indemnity within ten years.
The Pope, however, was far from satisfied with Florence. He found her to have been lukewarm in the service of the Church when Romagna and the Marche rebelled, which, if true, was not surprising, for he had played fast and loose with her liberty, and now accused her of neglecting his interests and of attempting to detach other cities from his cause. These among other accusations; in return he threatened no longer to grant her his goodwill.
The whole situation was serious. The temporal power of the Church with the victories of Albornoz was again growing in Italy; it was now certain that the Pope would one day return. It was necessary to placate him. And again in this delicate mission the Florentines employed Boccaccio.
It cannot have been with very great enthusiasm that Boccaccio learned he was once more to cross the Alps on a mission as difficult as any he had handled. He had returned from Venice in 1363 quieted, altogether reconciled, for a time at any rate, with himself, determined not to abandon his work. Ever since 1359, certainly, he had devoted himself to learning, to the study of Greek and the Latin classics, of the great early Christian writers, and to the accumulation of knowledge. For ten years now, ever since the failure of his mission in 1354, he had not been asked to undertake diplomatic business, and whether or no that neglect had been due to his failure or to his intercourse with Pino de' Rossi, who in 1360 was implicated in a conspiracy against the Guelfs, it cannot have been anything but distressing, we may think, to one so patriotic, so interested in politics too, as Boccaccio, to have been so long neglected, only to be made use of again in his old age. But the true patriot is always ready to serve his country, be she never so neglectful, and so, in spite of the interference with his plans, and the hardness and trials of the journey, it was not altogether, we may be sure, without a sort of pride and gladness that he set out for Avignon in August, 1365.[486] His business was to convince the Pope that the Florentines were "the most faithful and most devout servants of Holy Church." Besides the letters which he bore for Francesco Bruni and others in Avignon, Boccaccio also carried one from the Republic to the Doge of Genoa,[487] and he remained in that city for a season. It is to his stay there that, as he tells us in the _argomento_, his thirteenth Eclogue refers. In that poem he tells us that he and the poet called Dafni had a discussion with a merchant Stilbone, of which Criti was judge. Stilbone eagerly praises riches at the expense of poetry, reminding Dafni how many are the perils that menace that fragile glory which poets value so highly, such as fire and war, which may easily destroy their works. Dafni, on the other hand, celebrates the power of poetry, which recalls the minds of men from the depths of Erebus. Criti praises both riches and poetry, but does not decide between them.